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I went back a few pages, so apologies if this has been brought up recently, but I feel like I was obsessed with The Animatrix when it happened and then the movies sort of tamped that down to the point where I just... forgot about all this lore. Thing is... it's really good? Not kinda good, legit good. Not all of the stories are great, but Kid's Story is easily one of the best animated things I've ever witnessed. It kinda sucks how weakly they shoehorned his story into the movies, but holy gently caress, the animation is gorgeous, the music is amazing, and it all just... gently caress, man, it's just a really, really good short. Pretty much all of the stories have something that adds to the mythos and build on top of a thing I think a lot of us really dug. It doesn't feel like a vanity project, it feels like a bunch of people that all bought into the idea of the Matrix as a cool universe and the universe itself let us down. These are earnest, passionate, talented takes on a moment in time that I don't think we'll get back. I'd completely forgotten about this whole collection and it's insane to see how much talent is packed into these shorts; it doesn't feel like there was a shitton of money thrown at some of the "it" people at the time in animation (though I'm sure there was), but it's crazy to see a combination of these huge names all getting together to do something super new and different. I challenge you to watch Kid's Story and not feel just a teeny bit affected by the last few bits, or not to marvel at the insanely awesome 3D work put into Beyond or just to not get a teeeeeeny bit awed by the fact that Final Flight of the Osiris is almost 20 years old now. It's all really good, and it feels both a product of its time and something that transcends that moment. You can feel that everyone involved was dorking out as much as we all were about the idea of this universe, and it makes for a bunch of neat little vignettes. I feel like everything's a bit too spread out now to allow this sort of thing to happen again. This was a lot of very, VERY talented people rallying around an idea or a concept in a way I don't think can happen anymore, and it's... good? It's really enjoyable, now, almost two decades removed from the original moment. If you haven't watched it recently, give it a go. It's better, I think, than you remember.
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Dec 13, 2021 11:42
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I never got into the Matrix hype (loved the first, hated the second, was forced to watch the third by friends when it came out), but I remember the Animatrix being a very cool showcase for different animation styles. But in terms of any kind of plot it felt very much like the sequels - didn't know what it was supposed to be and had a lot of people playing in the sandbox. Literally the only thing I remember now is a soldier being ripped screaming from his mech tank thing and being horribly maimed in the process. From Youtube comments, I think that traumatised a lot of people! Dog_Meat fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 13:07
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The Animatrix is as good as this thread's tag pick (great) and I agree that it's a truly unique piece of art that was mostly overshadowed by the fact that it came out two weeks after Reloaded (to be later dumped out with it and the rest of the bathwater after Revolutions) and/or written off by many as just another piece of Matrix tie-in merch rather than a fascinating and sprawling collaboration with some of the greats of anime. As with any anthology not every segment is going to be equally good or land with everybody but like, Shinichirou Watanabe directed Kid's Story and Detective Story in-between Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, and nobody talks about it. And yeah The Second Renaissance is multiply horrifying; the transition from "those poor robots" to "oh god, those poor people" is brutal. But it was a smart move to put the whole "backstory" into those segments and allow the rest to explore many of the other philosophical aspects of the franchise untethered by a need for a traditional overall story structure.
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Dec 13, 2021 13:45
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Dog_Meat posted:I never got into the Matrix hype (loved the first, hated the second, was forced to watch the third by friends when it came out), but I remember the Animatrix being a very cool showcase for different animation styles. But in terms of any kind of plot it felt very much like the sequels - didn't know what it was supposed to be and had a lot of people playing in the sandbox. I do think there's more there than just idle exploration of the concept. It took me re-watching it recently to realize there was some very calculated exploration of some of the deeper concepts of the lore and some tertiary stuff that couldn't be touched on by the movies given that they were basically being forced to make the other two movies back-to-back. I think it's why I'm cautiously hopeful for this last movie; I think the Wachowski sisters had something more substantial to tell, but WB wanting them to pump out something in such quick succession didn't really afford them the chance to say it. That they had a hand in some of the stories in The Animatrix might have been something of an out for that, but I definitely got the sense that they knew how broad and deep their universe was, and these animated stories let them seed those ideas and have other people play in that sandbox, as you said. VROOM VROOM posted:The Animatrix is as good as this thread's tag pick (great) and I agree that it's a truly unique piece of art that was mostly overshadowed by the fact that it came out two weeks after Reloaded (to be later dumped out with it and the rest of the bathwater after Revolutions) and/or written off by many as just another piece of Matrix tie-in merch rather than a fascinating and sprawling collaboration with some of the greats of anime. As with any anthology not every segment is going to be equally good or land with everybody but like, Shinichirou Watanabe directed Kid's Story and Detective Story in-between Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, and nobody talks about it. I totally agree. They just didn't have the room or the reason to dive deeper into the backstory when they were trying to onboard the audience, and I really like that those Second Renaissance stories made it super plain that we were the ones that hosed everything up. Since all we ever see of the surface in the movies is the desiccated husk of civilization, you never get a real sense that we were living in a real utopia for a time. It gives everything more weight than just Machines = bad guys. I also really appreciated Matriculated as a story watching it now. It's still a complete visual mindfuck, but knowing that there's at least a faction that was always reaching out and looking to not forcibly reprogram the machines but come to a genuine peace is actually one of the most slyly hopeful parts of the whole mythos. It's a really cool take, and I dug the Giger-esque look of the surface world. [edit] I legit completely missed that there's a Matrix thread already, ugh. Sorry about that. SamBishop fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 18:30
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